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Coyotes-Wolves-Cougars.blogspot.com

Grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars/ mountain lions,bobcats, wolverines, lynx, foxes, fishers and martens are the suite of carnivores that originally inhabited North America after the Pleistocene extinctions.
This site invites research, commentary, point/counterpoint on that suite of native animals (predator and prey) that inhabited The Americas circa 1500-at the initial point of European exploration and subsequent colonization.
Landscape ecology, journal accounts of explorers and frontiersmen, genetic evaluations of museum animals, peer reviewed 20th and 21st century research on various aspects of our "Wild America" as well as subjective commentary from expert and layman alike. All of the above being revealed and discussed with the underlying goal of one day seeing our Continent rewilded.....Where big enough swaths of open space exist with connective corridors to other large forest, meadow, mountain, valley, prairie, desert and chaparral wildlands.....Thereby enabling all of our historic fauna, including man, to live in a sustainable and healthy environment. - Blogger Rick

Mistake at the lake: Wolf chases deer into the water, quickly reconsiders

We've seen wolf packs in Alberta, Canada pull off some impressive hunts in the past, but sometimes, predatory success can be elusive – especially when a wolf is hunting solo ... and pursuing its quarry in the water.

Amateur photographer David Smith was enjoying a canoeing trip in Alberta's Lakeland Provincial Park and Recreation Area when he found himself in the perfect lakeside position to photograph a wolf's ambitious (if somewhat ill-considered) plan to outswim a white-tailed deer.

Smith and a group of friends began their morning in a remote spot at Kinnaird Lake, one of the largest in the park, to the sounds of howls in the distance, so they were aware that wolves were nearby.

Lakeland Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada

"After hearing a wolf pack howling in the morning, there was a big splash in the lake 50 feet in front of us,"Smith wrote on Facebook. "What happened I don't think many people will have the luck of seeing, let alone documenting."

Moments after the stag burst into the water from the tall grass lining the banks, Smith, who photographs with ILEP Photography, grabbed his camera to capture the unfolding chase scene.

The resulting series of images has generated a lot of interest online, and although the snapshots don't show the final outcome, Smith told curious commenters on Facebook that the deer did get away in the end.

"The stag jumped out of the bush and the wolf jumped right in after it and tried to swim and bite it," he later recounted to CBC News. "This probably went on for a minute and then the wolf turned around. He probably realised it wasn't going to have too much of an opportunity to kill this animal in the middle of the lake."

Wildlife biologists who weighed in on the encounter agreed, telling Smith that the lone wolf may have been a young male, and therefore an inexperienced hunter. "Potentially he just realised swimming and attacking the buck was too much to manage," Smith added on Facebook.

With the wolf retired from the race, the group watched the swimming stag reach safety, apparently unharmed in the ordeal.

This particular aquatic hunt may have been doomed to fail from the start, but wolves in some parts of North America regularly look to the water for their sustenance.

The wolf population in Alaska's Katmai National Park, for example, has a unique relationship with the sea. Each summer, Katmai's waters fill with salmon returning from the ocean to spawn, and for the local canids, the fish are an easy food source that's just a dive away. And it seems even sea otters are occasionally on the menu in these parts:

DNR estimates surge in wolf population in Minnesota

By Josephin Marcotty and Paul Walsh

The number of wolves in northeast Minnesota jumped 25 percent in the past year, most likely because deer, their favorite prey, saw a similar increase in population.

After remaining stable during the past four years, the Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) annual wolf survey for 2016-17 found there were roughly 500 wolf packs and 2,856 wolves. That’s up from 439 packs and 2,278 animals from the previous year, but it’s still not as high as it was between 2004 and 2008, when the population was about 3,000.

DNR wildlife scientist John Erb said deer numbers in that part of the state have increased by 22 percent, the result of recent “mild winters and conservative hunting seasons the last few years.” Deer are especially vulnerable to deep snow, which hampers their ability to feed and escape predators, and which severely curtailed their population after the harsh winters of 2013 and 2014.

But the DNR also found that packs were somewhat larger and their territories somewhat smaller, an indication of their higher density in Minnesota’s forests.

“It’s the amount that can feed on the number of deer that are there,” said David Mech, a wolf researcher with the U.S. Geological Survey.

It’s not clear at this point whether the extent of their range, which spans far northern Minnesota and narrows steadily toward the south as far as Little Falls and Milaca, has also changed. Erb said the DNR will attempt to determine if the size of wolf territory has increased in subsequent surveys.

DNR wildlife officials conduct a wolf survey every winter when the population is at its lowest point. The count is an estimate based on calculations that include tracking about 40 wolves collared with radio telemetry devices, aerial sightings, the number of tracks, pack and territory size. But the difficulty of conducting the survey results in a wide margin of error — this year it was estimated to be plus or minus 500 wolves, about what it is every year.

The number of wolves in the state was once as low as 750, but that was still the largest population in the lower continental United States after many decades of attempted extermination pushed the animal onto the endangered species list. Since then, their number has steadily grown, and they’ve begun to populate northern Wisconsin and Michigan as well.

Minnesota and other states instituted a hunting season on wolves when they were temporarily removed from the endangered species list in 2012. But a federal judge ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to re-list them in 2014 after wildlife protection groups argued successfully that the agency had failed to follow requirements of the Endangered Species Act. The suit is still pending.

Today their number is well above the 1,251 to 1,400 that the state has set as its goal for the animal, which is also protected in Wisconsin and Michigan.

“I do not know if or when a wolf harvest may resume,” Erb said. “It is not really about the numbers. It’s now more about legal and sociopolitical wrangling.”

The number of wolves in the state was once as low as 750, but that was still the largest population in the lower continental United States after many decades of attempted extermination pushed the animal onto the endangered species list. Since then, their number has steadily grown, and they’ve begun to populate northern Wisconsin and Michigan as well.

Minnesota and other states instituted a hunting season on wolves when they were temporarily removed from the endangered species list in 2012. But a federal judge ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to re-list them in 2014 after wildlife protection groups argued successfully that the agency had failed to follow requirements of the Endangered Species Act. The suit is still pending.

Today their number is well above the 1,251 to 1,400 that the state has set as its goal for the animal, which is also protected in Wisconsin and Michigan.

“I do not know if or when a wolf harvest may resume,” Erb said. “It is not really about the numbers. It’s now more about legal and sociopolitical wrangling.”

A Minnesota-based wolf advocacy group was heartened by the DNR’s latest survey.

“This is encouraging news for an endangered, vulnerable and valued species in Minnesota,” said Maureen Hackett, founder and president of Howling For Wolves. “Although our gray wolf population estimate is still below the level of 10 years ago and before three years of wolf trophy hunting, we’re moving in the right direction

A Minnesota-based wolf advocacy group was heartened by the DNR’s latest survey.

However, she was critical of the DNR’s counting method, saying it “makes unsophisticated assumptions and presumes wolf population based on former estimates of available habitat.”

Mech, however, said that the DNR’s methodology is sound, and that it accurately reflects long-term trends.

Erb said that it’s possible the wolf population could continue to increase if deer numbers keep rising. But with rare exceptions, wolf populations hardly ever exceed four or five animals per 100 square kilometers, he said, which is close to what it was at its peak in Minnesota in 2004.

When populations exceed the amount of territory or food available, wolves tend to disperse into other areas or they control their own numbers through fighting or other methods, he said.

Unkempt, weedy land unintentionally boosts wildlife

May 20, 2013

Parts of the farm landscape that look overgrown and 'scruffy' are more important in supporting wildlife than they first appear, according to new research published today in Ecology Letters.A clean, plowed field minimizes biodiversity--no cover, food or shelter for wildlife

The findings stem from an intensive study of an organic farm in Somerset by a team of scientists focussing on the complex ways in which animals and plants interact.

First, the team of researchers from the University of Hull, the University of Bristol and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, created one of the world's largest terrestrial food-webs – a what-eats-what guide to the food-chain, and then developed a method of predicting what would happen to the whole food-web when habitats were lost.

young forest habitat abutting farmers field optimizes biodiversity

They found that many types of insects and other animals have food sources in the apparently 'scruffier' parts of the farm such as field corners, the edges of farmyards and bits of 'wasteland' where old tractors and broken machinery slowly rust away.

The research, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), also allowed the team to identify when different animal species would be made extinct by the loss of particular habitats, and which plants are the most critical in sustaining animal life.

Wild edges abut a farmers field optimizing wildlife habitat

Dr Darren Evans from the University of Hull, the lead-author of the paper, said: "This research has shown us how the biodiversity of a particular area can be affected by changes to its habitat. We discovered that the small patches of unkempt and weedy areas on a farm are actually hugely beneficial in supporting local ecosystems. Indeed, they even benefit animals that could benefit farmers by providing pollination and natural pest control."

Excellent cover, horizontal and vertical tangle in home garden

Dr Michael Pocock, a team member at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, said: "We found that the important food plants for many animals are found in multiple habitats on the farm boosting farmland wildlife resilience. In other words, if a farmer removes mature hedgerows and the plants this habitat contains, most animals could (in theory) survive because the plants are found in other parts of the farm. Our new analytical approach allows us to test which habitats are disproportionately most important and 'rough ground' – like the unkempt field corners – are most important of all."

Another example of creating food, cover and shelter for wildlife in home garden

Project leader Professor Jane Memmott from the University of Bristol said: "Essentially, in unkempt patches of the countryside there are a wide range of plants that many would regard as weeds, which are an important food source for many animals. There certainly seems to be a case for 'doing nothing' in these habitats. Farmers may even gain by having these scruffy areas because they support so many beneficial animals, such as bees."

Reforesting a Stumpscape

History of Sustainable Forestry in the South

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications • September 21, 2017

By 1930, the golden age of lumbering was over. “In about 25 years, millions of acres of old-growth forests had been harvested,” says U.S. Forest Service emeritus scientist James Barnett. “Land once covered with majestic stands of longleaf pines had become vast ‘stumpscapes.’”

The cutover land was not suited for farming or raising cattle

Cutover forests were bare, with little prospect of regeneration. Forests had been clearcut with gigantic steam-powered skidders that destroyed all standing trees. In many areas, no seed trees remained.

At the time, most lumbermen saw no benefit in leaving small trees or seed trees. “They were harvesting 200 year old trees,” says Barnett. “They couldn’t fathom growing another crop.”

Henry Hardtner of the Urania Lumber Company was the first lumberman to advocate for reforestation.

As early as 1905, Hardtner believed cutover land could provide a second crop within 60 years. “Hardtner was a visionary,” says Barnett. “In the early 1900s, many lumbermen thought replanting was a publicity stunt.”

Hardtner became the leading advocate for reforestation. He told his employees to leave trees less than a foot in diameter, and to leave four seed trees per acre. He also began protecting his stands from disturbances like wildfire and rooting hogs. Hardtner developed close ties to the Forest Service, and a number of FS foresters visited the Urania Lumber Company.

The Great Southern Lumber Company owned over 300,000 acres of land – much of it virgin longleaf pine stands such as these. Photo from Louisiana State University Archives.

Barnett wrote about Hardtner and others in a recentGeneral Technical Report that also explores the era’s historic context. The Civil War had recently ended, and millions of former slaves were landless and destitute. The South’s economy was in shambles.

“As the Nation expanded westward, the demand for lumber was enormous,” says Barnett. “Huge amounts of wood were needed to build railroad cross ties, bridges, and trestles. And old-growth forests in the northern U.S. were depleted.”

It probably seemed fortuitous that the federal government was selling millions of acres in the Gulf Coast states. Much of this land was covered in virgin longleaf pine and cost as little as $1.25 an acre.

“Lumbering became the economic driver for the recovery of the region,” says Barnett. Sawmills flourished. In Louisiana, as many as 1,300 sprung up in the early 20th century, and there was a mill in almost every town.

For a while, the mills were a huge employer. However, within 20 years, most of them had harvested all the nearby timber and closed. “Many mill towns became ghost towns,” says Barnett.

Some of the largest sawmills in the world were in Louisiana, such as the Great Southern Lumber Company at Bogalusa. At its peak, the Great Southern Lumber Company’s mill produced up to one million board feet of lumber each day.

William Sullivan managed the Great Southern Lumber Company. Sullivan eventually became convinced that Hardtner’s ideas about forest restoration were correct and began to implement them at the Great Southern.

Like Hardtner, Sullivan used natural regeneration when possible. However, he also began developing methods for growing and planting pine seedlings.

Forest Service researcher Philip Wakeley began working with Great Southern in 1924. The Southern Forest Experiment Station – precursor to the Southern Research Station – had only existed since 1921.

Wakeley and his colleagues at Great Southern began studying southern pine restoration. The scientists developed methods for collecting pine seeds and growing seedlings in nurseries, along with technology for planting the seedlings.

Great Southern’s forestry program ended during the Great Depression, but Wakeley’s work continued. By 1934, Wakeley was conducting research at the newly established Stuart Nursery. The nursery was located in the Kisatchie National Forest, LA. Eventually, the nursery produced 25 million seedlings a year.

Unfortunately, longleaf pine is more difficult to regenerate than other southern pines. Once cut down, longleaf pine forests could not easily be replaced.

In hindsight, the loss of millions of acres of virgin longleaf pine forests was an ecological catastrophe. However, the region had few other resources, and people needed work. “Lumbering helped the South recover economically after the Civil War,” says Barnett.

Barnett followed in Wakeley’s footsteps and spent his career developing reforestation practices. Barnett and other SRS scientists eventually developed guidelines for longleaf pine regeneration – including how to grow longleaf pine seedlings in containers, a question that had baffled experts for decades.

“There’s hope that the longleaf pine ecosystem will continue to expand,” says Barnett. “It is an economic asset, as well as a recurring vision of the beautiful and inspiring forests that once covered so much of the South’s forested landscape.”

What's a hawk chick doing alive in an eagle nursery?

The red-tailed hawk – who's since been nicknamed "Spunky" – is still quite at home with its adopted eagle family, and according to reports from locals observing the nest, the young bird has now fledged! The hawklet took its first short flight late last week, and was able to make it back to the nest where it was fed by its bald eagle "parents".

Exposure to the elements, sudden raids by predators, incompetent (or outright callous) parents, the omnipresent spectre of starvation: any baby bird faces some steep odds in its journey to full-feathered, high-flying adulthood. But one weeks-old red-tailed hawk in British Columbia has managed to beat odds that are both steeper and stranger than usual. How long it can keep doing so, though, remains a very open question.

This spring, bird watchers monitoring a long-used bald eagle nest along the seacoast of Vancouver Island's Saanich Peninsula noticed a strange-looking tenant amid three eaglets: a much smaller nestling identified as a newborn red-tailed hawk. The eagle parents have been feeding the hawklet alongside their own chicks,treating the imposter as a member of the family

It's an unusual and fraught situation. Eagles and hawks aren't naturally chummy: brooding redtails (and other hawks) defensively harass much larger but less agile bald eagles, which in turn will readily prey on hawk nestlings.

So what's a hawk chick doing alive and (apparently) well in an eagle nursery? We can't say for sure, but local raptor experts suspect the likeliest scenario involves the eagles plundering a redtail nest and hauling some chicks back to their aerie as prey. Perhaps the hawklet in question, still kicking, started gaping for food and triggered the eagles' parental instincts.

Supporting this hunch is the fact that a local nature photographer actually took a picture on May 29 of twohawklets in the eagle nest. That second redtail chick didn't make it – eaten, perhaps, or simply a victim of the harsh, sometimes fratricidal competition common within eagle broods.

The surviving hawklet, though, has proved its mettle so far, successfully vying with its much heftier nest-mates for scraps. "It's quite something to see the way it is treated," Kerry Finley, a caretaker at the Shoal Harbour Migratory Bird Sanctuary where the eagle nest is situated, told the Vancouver Sun. "The parents are quite attentive."

Dr David Bird, retired professor of wildlife biology at McGill University and director of the Hancock Wildlife Foundation that's long kept tabs on this particular aerie, notes that the redtail likely assumes it's an eagle. "That's probably why it's so cocky and has a lot of swagger," he explains. "Because of its spunkiness and aggressiveness, it's been able to survive among those big eaglets."

The hawklet is obviously ascribing to an eagle's diet. "Let me put it this way: it's eating a lot of fish," Bird says. The eagle aerie – occupied for more than a quarter-century – lies in a Douglas-fir tree on Roberts Bay, with easy access to rich fishing and foraging waters in and along Haro Strait. The chick's mostly piscivorous menu isn't exactly typical for its kind, but Bird doesn't expect any long-term issues: red-tailed hawks, after all, are generalist predators up for eating just about anything they can catch and overpower.

Then again, "long term" isn't necessarily in the cards for a hawk in a bald-eagle foster family.The eaglets hatched at the start of April, and observers estimate the hawklet to be roughly half their age – maybe five weeks old. It would, of course, be outsized regardless of any age disparity. A mature bald eagle may tip the scales at ten pounds or more and sports a wingspan of six or seven feet; an average red-tailed hawk weighs four or five times less. You can see just how much smaller the hawklet is than its nestmates in this recent video of feeding time in the mixed brood:

Impressive as the youngster's ongoing survival literally in the heart of an eagle's nest has been, a perilous period lies ahead. Within the next couple of weeks, the hawklet and its adopted siblings will fledge. They'll leave the nest for longer and longer periods, practicing flight and eventually hunting. Mom and dad will still feed them for perhaps seven to ten days further, Bird explains, but it's something of a free-for-all: the adult eagles may just drop food in the nest, and the fledglings will have to scramble for it. At this stage, eaglets will even aggressively commandeer morsels from incoming parents.

It'll be a real test for the young hawk to muscle its way into this fray – and, as it does so, to avoid looking like dinner to the increasingly big, mobile and mature eaglets. Bird notes that it's also possible the eagle pair will wind down their parental duties before the redtail's adept enough to catch prey on its own.

Should the hawklet survive the trial-by-fire of its upbringing and successfully reach adulthood, Bird is especially intrigued by what sort of path it might take. "The redtail may or may not leave the nest safely," he says, "but if it does, will it try to court a bald eagle or court its own kind?" In other words, will it keep on assuming it's an eagle? (Just keep it away from a mirror.)

Decades ago, Bird and his colleagues conducted experiments into "cross-fostering" among raptors, specifically the little falcons called kestrels. The researchers swapped eggs and babies between American and common (aka European) kestrels, and then tracked their mating preferences as adults: would they shun their own species and romance potential partners belonging to their adopted one? "About 50 percent of them made the wrong choice," Bird notes.

Of course, should this foster-raised redtail try getting fresh with a bald eagle, it's unlikely to get very far. "It will probably be immediately rebuffed, if not killed," Bird says.

Even without self-identity issues and potentially murderous family members, a young raptor has its work cut out for it: about half die within the first year. Those are the cold hard facts, but we probably shouldn't be writing off this spunky red-tailed hawk just yet: it's got the outlook of an eagle, after all.

Two Massachusetts Eastern Coyotes at their den site

Eastern Wolf in Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada

Aldo Leopold--3 quotes from his SAN COUNTY ALMANAC

"We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect."

Aldo Leopold

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."

Aldo Leopold

''To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering."

Wildlife Rendezvous

Like so many conscientious hunters and anglers come to realize, good habitat with our full suite of predators and prey make for healthy and productive living............Teddy Roosevelt depicted at a "WILDLIFE RENDEZVOUS"

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This is a personal weblog. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer. In addition, my thoughts and opinions change from time to time…I consider this a necessary consequence of having an open mind. This blog is intended to provide a semi-permanent point in time snapshot and manifestation of my various thoughts and opinions, and as such any thoughts and opinions expressed within out-of-date posts may not be the same, nor even similar, to those I may hold today. All data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. Rick Meril and WWW.COYOTES-WOLVES-COUGARS.COM make no representations as to accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.